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Middle East
Shot Palestinian woman loses baby
Woman who was eight months pregnant caught in Israeli-Palestinian crossfire.
Last Modified: 11 May 2007 01:29 GMT
Residents of the refugee camp say Israeli soldiers wounded Maha Katoumi and killed her unborn baby
A Palestinian woman has lost her unborn baby after she was caught in the crossfire of a shootout between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters in the occupied West Bank.
 
Residents of al-Ein Beit Alma refugee camp in the town of Nablus said Israeli soldiers shot and wounded Maha Katoumi, 30.
An Israeli soldier and two Palestinian fighters were also wounded.
 
Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Ramallah, said the gun fight took place after Israeli military vehicles entered the refugee camp in the early hours of Thursday.
Israeli military sources said the soldiers were firing after Palestinian fighters attacked them with grenades.
 
The woman's husband, holding a box containing the baby's body, told reporters that when the shooting started, his wife went to fetch their other children from another room.
 
"As she stood up, the bullets entered her body, she flew from the bed to the bathroom," he said.
 
Doctors at a local hospital said Katoumi, in her eighth month of pregnancy, lost the baby.
 
An Israeli army spokesman in Tel Aviv said he was checking the reports about the wounded woman.
 
He said a soldier was wounded in the fighting. "Improvised grenades were thrown at a group of soldiers operating in the area overnight.
 
The soldiers identified militants shooting at them and they returned fire ... and identified hitting two of them," he said.
 
Israel's military frequently carries out operations to detain wanted Palestinian fighters in the West Bank.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies
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